From The Great Wall of China to Consultancy
1.Introduction
Kafka’s The Great Wall of China mainly revealed a story of building the great wall in ancient China, which used as a protection against the nomads in northern part of China. The whole text can be divided into two parts. Kafka first focused on the method that used in the construction of the wall, i.e. walls built in different sections then joint one another from the other sides, as well as its meaning of building the wall. Then he introduced the imperialism of ancient China, the role of leadership played in the construction of the wall, the relationship between common people and the emperor.
This essay first gives a general background of the whole story as to introduce the main idea and the focus of the author. Reflection is following to demonstrate thoughts that generated by the story, as well as the relations between consultancy and the great wall. In the third part of the essay, the definition and features of the consultant and their duties are given, as for the relationship between consultancy and client is put forward in the fourth part. The essay concludes that consultant is important to organizations to solve the problem. However, enough attention should be given on the relationships between them so as to reach a win-win situation.
2.Background of The Great Wall of China
The point of the first part is trying to explain and understand the piecemeal construction of the wall, the system which left many gaps unfilled even when the construction was completed. The text was delivered in a form of report through an academic’s view that had certain knowledge of architecture and acclaimed that he himself was also involved in the building of the wall. He argued that as a huge construction work like this, and aiming to against the nomads, the wall which was not continuously built not only could not protect the people from being invaded by the nomads, but also the wall itself was in danger. Even worse, these gaps made the wall easier to be destroyed. Yet, the process of construction was actually being considered seriously. Architecture and masonry were the most needed knowledge at that time, and people were trained to build a wall just after they learnt how to walk. What made the leadership choose piecemeal construction was that to keep the workers always motivated and energetic towards the boring and time-consuming work. Later in the text an odd conclusion was given that the piecemeal building was chosen on purpose by the leadership, and the relationship between common people and the emperor was also mentioned in the second part of the text. Though these people were the final support of the empire, the knowledge they had about their master been so little. No matter the emperor was died or not, they only worked to the orders that given by their supervisors.
The wall indicate the development of an empire, its aim was against the nomads, however the construction made the nomads easy to invaded from outside. While the message sending was right on the opposite, the herald wanted to make his way to the outside. These two things are the impossible things appeared in the text, the wall cannot be used as a protection, because of its inconsistency; the herald would not walk away from the crowd/palace, since the land of China was so huge.
2. Reflectionsto the text
The text developed from building the wall to the rise and fall of an empire, the particular construction of the wall was not the most important point that the writer wanted to convey, rather the inside factors which hide in it arose his interest. The nomads, the leadership, the workers who built the wall, are all have something to do with consultancy. Consultant is deemed as an external force to help an organization solve their problems or to make them aware the potential threats. Fincham and Clark (2002:10) asserted that, “Consultancy is an externalized form of management…” The nomads was an external force that made the empire realize they have to do something to prevent the potential threat, thus they thought to build the great wall. The external force urged organization to adjust to the change environment as to survive. Here, the nomads and the leadership can both seem as an outside force to each other. The nomads may change its way to get into the land inside the wall because of the changing shape of the wall, while the leadership may also change the way of construction due to the changing invading direction of the nomads. Both of them need the external factors to remind them the problem that existed.
As for those people who helped to build the wall, the writer argued that they have no choice but to obey the orders given by their supervisor to use a piecemeal construction. The whole empire at that time functioned just like an organization which with hierarchy inside, labour being at the bottom of this hierarchy having no right to say something against the upper level but can only to follow the leadership. While people at the middle manager level, in charge of recruit people to build the wall, figure out the problem and offer proper solutions, with the emperor at the top level has the power of final decision which allow the beginning of construction. An organization is regarded managed in a rational way. Rationality can also be found in this text when the construction was just about to begin. Berglund and Werr (2000: 640) declared that, “The managers’ decision-making is seen as rational and scientific, i.e. based on facts”. Before the construction of the wall, the leadership had realized the fact that masonry and architect were the most important people they needed to help built the wall, based on which they began to find those people needed rather than carried out the work randomly.
3. Indicationto consultancy
Consultancy according to Rassam (1998: 4) is hard to define, and it has three important elements: 1) identifying a problem, 2) recommending a solution, and 3) helping with implementation, because of these features consultants play different roles in reality. In this text, building the wall required the same process as consultancy. First, people at that time recognized the invading of nomads from north as a problem which needed to be solved. Then the leadership offered a solution which was to build the wall as a protection against the nomads, at the same time they chose the method of construction. Finally, in order to achieve the goal, some knowledgeable men or whoever had the knowledge related to architecture was chosen to help build the wall. Consultancy is a process of problem discovering and solving, and a consultant is defined as:
… is someone who by virtue of training and experience has knowledge which he can impart to or share with others who consult him with a problem. He may proffer advise or he may act more passively as a counsellor, providing an informed and experienced foil to a client sorting out his own problem.
(Moore 1994: 1)
People need consultant to help them make things clear, find solution and ended with a better result, for consultant recognizes the problem from the aspects which are different from theirs. Usually, People or an organization may bounded by the existing solutions to the problems, consultant while being an outsider can judge the problem externally without any bias, and can see the things which may ignored by them and urge the organization or the person to make effort to change it.
Nomads in this text can be seen as an outside force which considered as a problem that made the wall construction being undertaken. Rassam (1998: 4) point out that, “…consultant advises and encourages but never actually manages”. Consultant only gives advice, and the manager is the one who makes the decisions, and takes actions. Leadership in ancient times took the position of consultant who first found the problem and figured out the solution, then reported to the emperor. While the emperor was the one who had the real power to give orders which can be implied from Kafka’s words: “…leadership has exist since time immoral, along with the decision to construct the wall as well. Innocent northern people believed they were the cause; the admirable and innocent emperor believed he had given orders for it”.
As Fincham and Clark (2002: 4) defined that, “The consultant role is akin to that of medical practitioners, in that they diagnose organizational illness and prescribe appropriate remedies.” A medical practitioner must only give medicines which are just right for the kind of symptom that the patient have, but not other irrelevant ones which may lead more serious result. Same as consultants, they must always stick to the problem that rose by their client, give the right solution or otherwise the organization may expect to experience an even worse situation. Fincham (2002: 70) put forward that, “…the application of external best practice within organizations is seen as the consultant’s competitive edge…” In Kafka’s writing, consultancy is not seen as straightforward, it is more like someone give advice behind the person who has the real power, and make them think they have the responsibility when things go wrong.
3.1.Defining consultant
Consultant as Berglund and Werr (2000: 635) depicted that, “A consultant presenting something in order to convince the listeners that the presented activities will lead to a positive result and thus are something to put effort into”. In this text, there is no certain person that can be called as a consultant. Since one of the features of consultant is to offer views and advices from different aspects, which means they have to take one step back and jump out of the circle that let many managers bounded inside, and see things from the outside world. The nomads can also be counted as consultants, in which way they conceive the construction of the wall from a different perspective compare with the leadership. The writer considered they had better understanding of the way that used to construct the wall even than those who built it. As being an outsider, nomads gained the chance that they could judge things from its whole rather than separate parts.
The main responsibility of consultants is to find the problem, analyze it, and seek for the better solution for the organization, the knowledge they offer considered as the value of consultants. Fincham (2002: 69) put forwarded that, “The independent advice and problem-solving ability they [consultants] apparently offer frequently seen as core to the role, so that a notion of ‘knowledge transfer’ represents the main prescriptive definition of consultancy”. At the same time, Fincham (2002) also pointed out that the knowledge consultants provided from outside the industry is what the managers hardly have access to. Consultants thus must possess both the internal and external knowledge, to some point they should also acted both as an insider and an outsider, with deep insight to the particular case and overall view of the whole industry so as to share a different, yet relevant knowledge.
Being a consultant, should always tell the truth so as to let the manager see the real problem, Foucault regarded these kind of person as a “parrhesiastes”. In fact, consultant in many ways takes the characteristics of parrhesiastes. As to identify a parrhesiastes, Foucault (2001: 15) argued that, “The fact that a speaker says something dangerous-different from what the majority believes- is a strong indication that he is a parrhesiastes”. While refers to the work of consultant, things that he or she do is much enough to be called a parrhesiastes. The description of parrhesiastes introduced another feature of consultant which is being different. When manager realize that they need someone to help them solve the problem, they expecting a different opinion from others. Thus, if consultant believes in the same way or view things as most managers do, then they would lose their value for being a consultant. Only consultant truthfully reflect the might be result of the problem, and give a proper analysis, can an organization recognize the problems that existed. Besides always telling the truth, according to Foucault (2001), a parrhesiastes is always the one who in a lower position criticize the person in a higher position. Compare with consultant, who usually hired by managers have a lower position than that of managers, and their responsibility is always give advice, and judge the current situation based on their knowledge, they have no power of decision, only the manager make the decisions. Last, parrhesiastes consider telling truth as his or her duty. To point out one’s mistake or problem that he or she may not be well aware of, is a duty to help them have a better recognition of themselves. A consultant’s duty is to assist organization to realize its wrongdoing, and help them to understand the real problem and build a better organization in the aspects of structure, marketing, financial and so on.
4.Relationship between Consultant andClient
Client in the case of consultancy is often refers to organization, and rarely would be an individual. Consultant is needed when managers in the organization feel they cannot solve the problem by themselves. The nature and purpose between them can be inferred from Mulligan and Barber’s (1998:67) words that is, “The client needs help with something they are unable to do or choose not to do for themselves, and the consultant offers assistance and expertise in one form or another in response to this need”. The main responsibility of consultant is to identify, analyze, and figure out the problem that rose by the organization. Also, as Mulligan and Barber (1998) argued consultancy can be divided mainly into two categories based on their different approaches, either problem-centred or people-centred. The former one is focused on the question of what needs to be done, emphasis more on the problem itself, while the latter focused on how things are done, people and their relationship are given more attention. Consultant is expected to be an expert in both two fields, as in this text, the leadership as a role of consultant conceive and solve the problem combined these two approaches. First, they recognize the problem that was the nomads were invading from north of China, so the problem was realized and solution was found that to build a wall to prevent nomads. Second, towards the question of how things to be done, in this case was how the wall should be built, the leadership decided to choose piecemeal construction when consider the factors of long time construction and people’s emotion changed during the process.
In this relationship, although consultant is there to offer solution to the organization, it is not a one way communication, rather a two way communication between client and consultant. On the one hand, appropriate solutions are given by consultant for the organization; while on the other hand, the organization should also provide information concerning the problem, briefly state the situation to help consultant have a deep understanding of the issue that the organization now facing. The process of information exchange between two parties helps to boost trust for each part, Mulligan and Barber (1998: 74) considered that, “At this time, strategies both for the task and the relationship are considered and the way forward is planned”. Based on the inside knowledge which consultant gained from organization, with his or her outside knowledge about the industry, a specific and proper solution can be made to organization.
Consultant has many different roles, as Mulligan and Barber (1998) point out that they can be counsellor, expert, guide, mentor, etc. which are essential for consultant to be efficient and successful, while client can has many different roles as well, such as problem-bearer, contractor, manager, commissioner, etc. To have a benign relationship of consultant and client is important for a win-win result, for an organization find the most out of consultant, and the consultant get what they had paid for.
5. Conclusion
Consultancy is seen as one way to help organization work out the problems, and point out another possible direction. In this text, the leadership found the way to against nomads by building a wall; masonry help building the wall by giving out knowledge. In this sense, consultancy is considered as an assistant from who organization will gain advice. However, consultancy can have potential problems itself if the relationship between client and consultant is not proper established. Fincham (1996: 72) considered that, “…the client-consultant relationship can readily be seen as a type of agency relationship”. In which case, an agency problem can probably exist, as the agent may has a different goal with the principal. Consultant being has the advantage of knowing both inside and outside information, he or she may use their expertise to convince client what should to be done, in order to achieve his or her own goal but not consider the problem from the organization’s respective, thus lead to the failure of consultancy.
Besides, Fincham (1996: 69) argued that, “Views of the power role of management consultants inside organizations have veered between the extremes of consultants as puppets brought to legitimize managerial maneuvers, and as puppet masters who wield unaccountable power behind the scenes”. The leadership of ancient China had great power which can be inferred from the text, they had the power to make future plans, to decide building the wall and which people to recruit to help carry out the construction, and to decide which method to use to build the wall. As the person who has the real power-emperor, was directed by them while still thought he was the one who given the order to build the wall.
Consultant should be the person who transfers the knowledge that he or she has to the organization which in need, and standing outside the organization and offer different opinion is the value of being a consultant. To reach a successful consultancy, a good relationship between client and consultant is essential, as cooperation is important to identify the real issue within the organization.